What is the biggest problem currently in your system?

[Texaswheel]

The biggest problem I have is not knowing which new dvd player to buy.

Which will be the Beta and which will be the VHS of the High Definition DVD players???

Once that is figured out I can decide which one to buy.

I have been slowly dropping my dvd purchases to the minimum because I do not want to keep throwing my money away on old technology.

So will it be

BlueRay
or
HD DVD

????

[deacongreg]

I think you and I are in the minority. I believe right now the best thing to do is buy an excellent "universal DVD player." There are many to choose from, with excellent feature sets. But the draw to me, is that you can play virtually any disc, CD, SACD, DVD - A, DVD VIDEO, Mp3, and all the other formats. Most have bass management for SACD and DVD - A playback, and there actually are some gems out there that will not break your bank.

And most of all, no starting a new video library. Beta vs. Vhs, 8mm vs. Vhs type c, it goes on and on......................................

[PalmHarbor]

My biggest problem is finding something to watch that will hold my interest.
Showtime's programmer goes out of his or her way to pick obsecure, esoteric
or just bad movies each month.
HBO has a few things worth watching but now that Soprano's is history, old OZ
are worth watching.
Tonight watching Ann Coulter on MSNBC Hardball made my three cats leave the
room....what a horrible screachy voice that bitch has.
So I watch reruns for the old series COMBAT in black and White.

[deacongreg]

PalmHarbor, you know, I lowered my cable package to family cable. No HBO, Showtime, CinemaMax, Starz/Encore, etc.

However, being a big Star Trek fan (that is the original series with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy) I find myself tivoing them on the TVLAND channel. And, I am getting immense enjoyment out of it.
I believe I read some months ago, in Home Theater mag, that there is finally a DVD, with all the original episodes. So outside of my football and basketball, this
is what is giving me enjoyment, right now. Not my cable programming.

[boconnell]

The black bars on top/bottom when viewing widescreen DVDs. Of course, I have a standard CRT, but even with friends' widescreen sets (LCD/Plasma/DLP), they all have the same problem unless you stretch the picture, which also distorts everything in it (although you start to get used to seeing heavyset people after a while).

Any sets (other than the advertised Runco on this site) that solve this problem? That's what I'd like to get next.

-B

[tigeraudio2007]

On your standard 4:3 monitor, widescreen movies (1.78, 1.85, 2.35, and 2.40) are all going to have black bars on the top and bottom. This really isn't a problem. The ONLY way to get rid of the black bars on top and bottom is to zoom in or stretch vertically.

On widescreen HDTVs the aspect ratio is actually 1.78:1 (16:9) not the commonly thought 1.85:1. Thus, if you are playing something that is 1.85:1 on a widescreen tv the image is overshot, meaning, like in theaters, the movie actually goes a little over the top/bottom/left/right. So on 1.78:1 widescreen TVs the image is slightly larger than what you are seeing, or your TV has a readjustment that ever so slightly distorts the image to fit it on the screen.

This is why 2.35 and 2.40 are the true widescreen versions. In order to fit the entire width of the movie on the screen black bars are added to the top and bottom.

So, if you want to eliminate black bars on a widescreen tv with program material that 2.35:1 you have no chocie but to zoom in. While you will continue to see everything from top to bottom, the left and right sides of the image will now be lost off the screen.

My advice, watch the movies in the format in which they are given. If you have a widescreen tv and 4:3 program content, then watch the content in the 4:3 mode with black bars down the left and right side of the screen. If you have a 4:3 tv and widescreen program material watch it with black bars at the top and bottom. The truth is that reformatting video material to fit fully onto your screen is going to result in disproportionate content or a loss in image quality everytime. Sorry.